This invention relates to a disk drive, and more particularly to a disk drive capable of carrying out a maintenance process thereof.
Various kinds of techniques concerning operations of a disk drive for writing information in a recording medium and reading information therefrom are heretofore disclosed.
For example, the Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Publication No. Hei 10-199154 discloses the techniques for determining whether each read-out region is in a complete session or in an incomplete session, altering an operation mode in accordance with the results of the determination, and thereby enabling information to be read out even when the information is in an incomplete session.
The Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2000-149447 discloses techniques for executing a simple formatting operation, in which, when a recording medium is formatted in a disk drive, a drive controller records, reproduces, and erases a track consisting of a plural packet for a CD-RW disk, recording data in a user data part on a disk is omitted, and data are recorded in only a track information recording region, a memory program region, and a pre-gap memory.
The Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Publication No. Hei 10-40666 discloses a spin-up method of carrying out continuously in the order of records stored in an optical disk a process for collecting TOC (Table of Contents) information and a process for collecting information on a track recorded by a fixed recording system. In the method disclosed in this publication, a disk drive in use is adapted to determine when a spin-up operation is started whether a recording medium is a write-once type medium or not so as to reduce the time for executing a spin-up operation. When the recording medium is a write-once type medium, such as CD-R/RW, information is read from a program memory region (special region for tentatively recording therein information on a disk in which information is half recorded, which will hereinafter be referred to as PMA region). When the recording medium is other than a write-once type medium (e.g., an audio CD), the reading of the information recorded in the PMA region is not done but the reading of information recorded in a TOC region is done.
When the reading of information recorded in the PMA region of a write-once type medium is done as mentioned above, the information is read from an inner side to an outer side of the disk. Therefore, the information recorded in the disk is read efficiently.
In each of FIG. 7 to FIG. 10, the arrangement of storage regions from an inner circumference of a disk D toward an outer circumference thereof as shown by arrow (1). On a disk D, a PMA region in which PMA information is recorded, a lead-in region in which TOC information is recorded and a data region in which user's data are stored are arranged in order from an inner circumferential side of the disk toward an outer circumferential side thereof.
In an example of FIG. 7, a pickup is moved as shown by arrow (2) first to the PMA region, and the information stored in the PMA region is then read, the reading of information being thereafter done from the lead-in region and data region in that order.
In the case of other recording medium, the reading of information is done from the lead-in region thereof as mentioned above. In such a case, information is not written in the PMA region of the disk D. Therefore, as shown by the arrow (1), the reading of information is started from the lead-in region thereof, and continued in the same manner toward an outer circumference of the disk.
However, even in the case of a write-once type medium, information is not recorded in a PMA region thereof when the information is written by a disk-at-once method (method of writing data collectively at once on a disk as a whole).
Therefore, when the reading of information is done in a mode described by using FIGS. 7 and 8, it is conceivable that a situation in which the spin-up processing time is prolonged occurs as will be described below.
In particular, when the reading of information is done from a PMA region by a seeking operation of a pickup with respect to a disk D in which information is written by a disk-at-once method as shown in FIG. 9, a read error occurs in the PMA as shown in FIG. 9, and a seeking operation toward a TOC region is carried out again. In short, the execution of the reading of the information in the first PMA region proves to be useless in this case, so that starting a pickup to read information from the TOC region as shown in FIG. 8 is preferable.
However, when the reading of the information from the TOC region is done with respect to all the disks, the following inconveniences occur in a disk D constituting a write-once type medium and having information in a PMA region. When the reading of TOC data is done in a lead-in region first as shown in FIG. 10 with information written in a PMA region, the reading of the information in the same region is then done by carrying out a seeking operation of a pickup as shown by an arrow (2).
When the reading of information is done as described above with a reading mode changed in accordance with the kind of a disk as shown in FIGS. 7 and 8, the pin-up processing time can be reduced unless a disk as a write-once disk in which the writing of information is not done by a disk-at-once method is used. However, when a disk in which the information is written by a disk-at-once method is used as a write once disk, the occurrence of a situation in which the spin-up processing time is prolonged as shown in FIG. 9 and FIG. 10 is possible.
The present invention is conceived in view of these circumstances, and provides a disk drive capable of further reducing the spin-up processing time and a method thereof.